Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- When trying to revive one of the
world’s most iconic consumer-electronics brands, it pays to have
a mollusk on your side.

The gangling, accident-prone star of “Octodad: Dadliest
Catch” may hold the secret to success for Sony Corp.’s
PlayStation 4 console in one of his eight suckered arms. Sony
wants independent developers -- like the college crew who
dreamed up the game about an undercover octopus trying to keep
his true identity from his human family -- to give it an edge in
the $93 billion-a-year industry.

“They realized independent developers make a variety of
games, different types of games that you can’t always get
everywhere else,” said Philip Tibitoski, who produced the
original version of “Octodad” with fellow students at DePaul
University in Chicago and now runs Young Horses Inc., a small
studio in the city. “We have more flexibility to make
interesting things because there’s less risk.”

Sony is trying to differentiate its PS4 from Microsoft
Corp.’s Xbox One -- due out today -- by offering a wider
selection of popular and eclectic titles. After shocking
investors this month with a second-quarter loss, Chief Executive
Officer Kazuo Hirai needs hit games to generate a buzz in the
run-up to Christmas and build on the more than 1 million
consoles shipped in their first 24 hours on sale.

“Indie games are crucial to the ability of the PS4 to
sustain sales momentum,” said Koki Shiraishi, an analyst at
SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. in Tokyo. “Not being able to attract
general users, besides the core gamers, contributed to the PS3
failure.”

‘E-mails Exploded’

Initial PS4 sales topped those of its predecessor, which
failed to attract buyers because of a lack of titles. Sony’s
games unit had four consecutive annual losses following the
PS3’s 2006 introduction, returning to profit under Hirai in the
year ended March 2011.

GameStop Corp., the largest specialty retailer of video
games, said its initial allocation of PS4 consoles sold out, and
2.3 million customers were waiting for the Sony player and the
Xbox One. PS4 probably will generate $2.6 billion in profit over
its estimated eight-year lifespan, Kota Ezawa, an analyst at
Citigroup Inc. in Tokyo, wrote in a Nov. 14 report.

Tibitoski and his friends were on a games-making course
when their quirky creation caught Sony’s eye. The Tokyo-based
company loaned them kits to create titles and gave them a spot
in its June presentation at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles.

Development Kits

Sony, which has offered free development kits for a few
years, more than doubled the number distributed to several
hundred and boosted funding for independent studios ahead of the
PS4’s release, said Brad Douglas, who works closely with
gamemakers for Sony Computer Entertainment. He declined to say
how much Sony invested in indie titles.

“It is important to make that broad universe of content,”
Douglas said. “Probably 99 percent of all games released on the
mobile platform, no one ever sees them. If we don’t help them,
they’ll disappear.”

Sony paid for the development of “The Unfinished Swan,”
in which players chase a bird that escaped from a painting, said
Ian Dallas, who dropped out of a master’s program at the
University of Southern California to lead the project. A team
that grew to 12 people over three years developed the game for
the PS3. “Unfinished Swan” was the console’s top-selling title
in January, three months after its release.

Similar Hardware

“A lot of it is about differentiating the consoles,” said
Dallas, 35, who heads Giant Sparrow games company in Santa
Monica, California. “Sony is deliberately encouraging people
with unusual whims.”

It needs a strategy. U.S. sales of packaged titles for
consoles fell 21 percent to $8.9 billion last year, while those
for games played on phones, tablets or downloaded to computers
rose 16 percent to $5.9 billion, researcher NPD Group says.

Sony said yesterday it will cut $250 million in costs at
its entertainment units over two years as Hirai works to tie the
company’s content to its hardware.

Focusing on indie studios meant PS4 hit the market with one
more title than Xbox One will offer. Sony classified five of the
23 games available in the U.S. for the PS4 as “indie.” Xbox
One will have 22 in total.

Microsoft only began courting independent developers in
August, promising free kits to approved programmers. David
Dennis, a Microsoft spokesman, said there won’t be many indie
games when the Xbox One goes on sale, though “you should expect
to see plenty coming soon.”

Programming Snag

Sony also is financing games for its handheld PlayStation
Vita. The company backed the development of “OlliOlli,” a
skateboarding game created by London-based Roll7 Ltd.

“Any money we needed, we said ‘we need X amount’ and they
put that money forward,” said co-founder Tom Hegarty, 33.
“What that allowed us to do is to really focus on ‘OlliOlli’ to
make sure we got that right.”

When Hegarty hit a programming snag, Sony sent a specialist
to his studio.

“Fostering growth of indie game makers is an important
strategy,” said Citigroup’s Ezawa. “If you help them grow,
it’s more likely they will provide exclusive titles for you.”

Industry leaders such as Activision Blizzard Inc. make
titles for multiple consoles to reach the broadest audience. Its
“Call of Duty: Ghosts” and “Skylanders Swap Force” can be
played on PS4 and Xbox One.

“If you look at the cinema, it’s done extremely well over
the course of decades by capitalizing on talents that exist in
Hollywood around big-budget major features while at the same
time having a very vibrant art-house independent community,”
Sony’s game chief, Andrew House, said.

Tibitoski said Young Horses is still considering whether to
offer games on Xbox. For now, Sony has the lead.

“Sony reached out to us very early on,” he said. With
“Xbox, we’ve spent more time to get meetings, although they’ve
been very kind to us as well.”